Seeing a beauty smile comes with a price.
The price was Ji Xun wearing gloves, sitting cross-legged in front of the trash can in the Chinese restaurant, and beginning to sort through the garbage.
The trash can had indeed already been searched by Huo Ranyin; many items inside had been pulled out and categorized, leaving behind what should have been relatively unimportant.
Even so, Ji Xun prepared to sort through it once more.
After all, Huo Ranyin had his own perspective of observation, and Ji Xun had his.
Even if what they observed largely overlapped…
If there was even a tiny detail that didn’t overlap, the probability of solving the case would bump up by another 1%.
As he combed through the trash can again with his own hands, Ji Xun quickly discovered a small detail.
“The dates,” Ji Xun said.
“What?” the other two asked him.
“The instant noodle buckets have plastic film wrapping,” Ji Xun explained. “The bottom of the plastic wrapping usually has a production date stamped on it. I looked through all the production dates here and found that the batch numbers are different.”
Without Ji Xun needing to say it, Huo Ranyin had already noticed these things when he inspected the trash earlier.
“And?” he asked with a frown.
“There are three different dates here in total.”
He had already picked them out and laid them out in organized categories.
First were two identical ones, which also bore the earliest timestamp:
H20160315 07A
11:18
Next was a batch of eighteen identical ones:
H20160401 07A
10:56
Finally, a batch of seven identical ones:
H20160321 07A
21:23
“What does this represent?” Meng Fushan asked directly.
“When I first looked at it, I didn’t realize anything either—until I counted the number of items for each matching production date.”
Before Ji Xun could say another word, Huo Ranyin picked up the line softly:
“7—the number of bosses. 18—the number of bodyguards, Mr. Liu, and the crew members. 2—the two internal bosses whose bowls were poisoned.”
Ji Xun cast an appreciative glance at Huo Ranyin. Then, seamlessly and with profound implication, he raised a question:
“Why do the production timestamps on the instant noodles of the two poisoned bosses happen to match each other exactly?”
The moment Ji Xun pointed this out, the physical items and event—the instant noodles and how poison was introduced into them—were instantly linked together by a flash of inspiration. Meng Fushan felt an electric chill course through him.
I get it now!
Brilliant.
Too brilliant…!
The killer who committed the murder is brilliant.
And Ji Xun, who figured out the modus operandi in an instant just by looking at the packaging wrappers, is equally brilliant…!
“That makes sense.” Huo Ranyin exhaled deeply, feeling the same thrill of a major breakthrough in the investigation. “The poison wasn’t administered right under our noses. It was placed inside the instant noodle bowls long before. While the instant noodles were still wrapped in plastic, the poison was already inside—most likely placed within the seasoning packets. This isn’t hard to accomplish; it just requires meticulous advance preparation. It fits perfectly with the killer’s image of calculating every move on this ship to eliminate people one by one.”
“The method of poisoning is out in the open now,” Ji Xun said. “The next step is figuring out how the killer delivered these two bowls of instant noodles into the hands of the victims. To do that, we need to find the crew members and clarify how the supplies here are actually distributed. Only then can we make the next deduction: whether the killer was carrying out a targeted assassination or a random execution…”
“You were right,” Ji Xun said suddenly to Meng Fushan after finishing his analysis. Licking the corner of his lips, he let out a somewhat satisfied smile. “My luck today really isn’t bad. We’ve already secured the key clue. This case isn’t that difficult anymore.”
“What’s that in your hand?” Huo Ranyin said suddenly.
In his hand? Ji Xun glanced at his own hand—it held a few sticky notes.
“Sticky notes,” Ji Xun said.
“I know they’re sticky notes.” Huo Ranyin paused. “Where did they come from?”
“From the trash can,” Ji Xun said. Then it clicked, and he reacted: “When you sorted through the trash can earlier, you didn’t see this stuff?”
“No,” Huo Ranyin said with certainty.
“Interesting,” Ji Xun muttered to himself. “Someone came back here after all of you left, emptied the trash can first, dropped a few pieces of paper at the bottom, and then put the garbage back… Who do you two think would do such a thing?”
Without almost a moment’s hesitation, the other two blurted out in unison:
“The killer!”
“That’s right, the killer,” Ji Xun said slowly. “With this action, we can rule out suspicion for a few people…”
“First of all, after you guys left the Chinese restaurant, all the bosses, crew members, and potential suspects were forced into individual rooms. After that, Mr. Liu stayed in the second-floor hallway with his bodyguards until he came up with a way to contact the outside world and led all the bodyguards to the deck… Which means the eight bodyguards by Mr. Liu’s side are all free from suspicion. They had no opportunity to act alone. The only person who could act alone was someone inside one of the rooms.”
“This ‘someone’ took advantage of the gap when Mr. Liu and the bodyguards left, slipped out of their room, returned here, and placed several sticky notes inside the trash can. I assume these kinds of sticky notes are only available in the guest rooms, right?”
Ji Xun asked.
Huo Ranyin confirmed his suspicion.
“Yeah, there are some in my presidential suite. It belongs to a dark brown kraft paper spiral notebook.”
“Considering that the bosses aren’t familiar enough with the ship’s layout to execute the prerequisite sequence of drugging people, sabotaging the hull, and placing a signal jammer in a short amount of time, the scope of suspects can be narrowed down even further—down to the ship’s staff… It seems that with just a bit more careful digging, we’ll be able to catch the killer by the tail. But before that—”
Ji Xun shifted his gaze to the sticky notes in his hand.
“Why don’t we see what clue the killer left behind for us first?”
A few sticky notes, flipped front and back, bore no written words. It looked as if they had been casually torn off and carelessly tossed into the trash can. Had Huo Ranyin not previously checked the trash, no matter who came along, no one would have realized at first glance that there was something off about these pieces of paper.
However, once one realized these papers held a secret and focused their attention on them, the clue left behind by the killer was displayed right in front of them without any concealment.
Morse code.
Taking advantage of the inherent shape of the spiral notebook, the killer had manipulated the vertical strips of paper one by one. A strip with the top completely torn off represented a ‘•’ (dot); a strip with only a small portion torn off represented a ‘–’ (dash); and a strip with a larger portion torn off represented a ‘-’ (space/break). Through this method, a string of Morse code could be transmitted to them quite simply.
Ji Xun translated the code: “1N3R16.”
He fell into thought: “N… Number, R… Row. Number 1, Row 3, 16… What does that remind you of?”
“The tea room,” Meng Fushan realized immediately. He recalled the book he had grabbed from the tea room bookcase to signal Ji Xun, and also remembered that someone else had picked up a reading material at the same time—a magazine.
The kitchen assistant!
Meng Fushan relayed this detail to the other two.
“He really is very suspicious,” Huo Ranyin said coldly. “Go up and take a look now?”
“Before we go up, shouldn’t we consider another possibility?” Ji Xun said.
“What possibility?”
“Don’t you think these pieces of paper share a striking similarity to the microphone we dropped on the floor earlier?” Ji Xun countered. “Both feel like a little piece of bait.”
“You’re right.” Clearly, Huo Ranyin had already thought of this point; he nodded and countered fluidly, “The bait we threw out to Mr. Liu was meant to get him to send people down so we could divide and conquer them. What is the bait the killer threw out to us meant to make us do?”
“…”
That was indeed a question. Ji Xun went silent for a moment, pondering the killer’s mindset.
“There aren’t that many twists and turns—he’s just helping us,” Meng Fushan answered.
The two upright figures looked at Meng Fushan with doubtful eyes:
The killer is helping the detectives and the police?
“Don’t forget the current situation. Mr. Liu has already found a way to contact the outside world; the killer doesn’t have much time left.” Meng Fushan’s face bore a sneer. “Driven to a dead end, it’s inevitable for someone to take the path of fighting crime with crime. If the killer’s objective is to destroy this ship and kill Mr. Liu, then his goal isn’t that different from ours. Under these circumstances, what’s so strange about him helping us, giving us a direction, and letting us discover what he wants us to discover?”
Meng Fushan’s explanation convinced both of them.
“Looking at it from this angle,” Ji Xun said, “it makes sense. So should we follow this clue and head straight to the bookcase in the upstairs tea room to check it out?”
With a little effort, the group bypassed the bodyguards on the second floor and arrived at the lounge tea room in the central hall on the third floor. This action wasn’t too difficult; after all, Mr. Liu’s bodyguards had designated a visible safety zone for themselves. They remained completely motionless inside their safe zone, as if taking one step outside it would blow them to pieces in an invisible minefield.
There were four lounge tea rooms surrounding the staircase in the central hall on the third floor. They didn’t know which tea room’s Bookcase No. 1 the killer had placed the item in, but it wasn’t hard—each of them picked a location and searched directly.
Following the instructions of the Morse code, Meng Fushan came to Row 3 of Compartment No. 1. He found that this row was filled with colorful magazines. When he counted to 16, he suddenly spotted a notebook.
It was precisely the type of notebook provided uniformly on the ship in his room—meant for writing, drawing, taking notes, or even serving as a diary if anyone wished.
Did a crew member leave it here?
Or…
Or was this the very thing they were looking for?
By the time Meng Fushan realized it, the notebook was already in his hands, flipped open by him.
It was an old notebook that had been repeatedly used, or at least repeatedly flipped through, and there were items tucked inside it.
He saw the tucked-in contents.
“Engine Log.”
“Ji Xun…” he called out softly.
Both Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin, who were searching for items, were startled by Meng Fushan!
The central hall was open and continuous, with a group of armed bodyguards right downstairs. Although the bodyguards were bound by Mr. Liu’s orders not to cross the line under any circumstances, calling out to someone in a space where sound traveled unobstructed was simply too arrogant… Weren’t they afraid that the bodyguards below would hear them, grab their guns, rush up, and unload a full clip into them?
However, very quickly, they had no leisure to worry about that.
Meng Fushan handed the notebook over to Ji Xun.
Ji Xun saw the engine log, saw the year 1976, and saw the diary entries glued to the back of the engine log. He read the names written in the diary—“Miss Huo” and “Huo Qiying”—as well as the pledge covered in the very last line of the diary:
“I, Lu Kun, pledge that the content on this diary page was written truthfully by myself. This statement is hereby made.”
He handed this page over to Huo Ranyin, and then rapidly—almost impatiently—flipped through the entire notebook.
In the end, he discovered that there were seven such entries in total inside this notebook.
Seven entries, which together formed a complete narrative with a beginning and an end.
A complete account of what transpired on the Dingbo in 1976, from the moment Huo Qiying boarded the ship to the moment of her death.
